Ensnared (16 page)

I shiver as Dad and I move faster.

A sketch stands guard at the tunnel’s end—a neon orange fairy whose wings spread behind her in pinks, blues, and whites.

It’s me.
The one Jeb painted on the tunnel wall in our world. But this is not a part of the wall. She’s facing us, an ominous barricade . . .

“Stay behind me.” Dad draws the dagger, waving it as he faces her. Bright colors reflect off the shiny blade and the iron bypasses her lines. Dad steps through without any trouble. “Come on, Butterfly. It’s just an illusion.” He holds out a hand.

I reach for him, but something jerks his shoulder from the shadows behind. The dagger falls from his grasp and hits the floor with a clang. “Run, Allie!” he yelps as he’s dragged away out of my sight.

Terror ices my spine. “Dad!”

My fluorescent double steps back into place, blocking me. “You should be in pieces like the others,” she whispers. Her breath smells of sadness, lost dreams, and abandoned hopes—like stale, dust-covered keepsakes in a forgotten attic.

I grit my teeth against revulsion and fear. Dad walked right through her. That’s proof she’s not real.

I lunge.

My body meets a prickly barrier, each sketched line piercing like barbed wire. I yell and my attacker echoes me. I rip free from her barbs and hit the ground. My bones rattle even with my wings cushioning the impact.

The drawing drifts toward me, her body and face warping as she gets closer. Her mouth stretches cavernously wide and she screeches, “Shred her!”

Her thorny fingers scrape my neck. I shield my face, trying to use magic to recruit the other graffiti along the walls to help. Either I’m too panicked or they’re under someone else’s spell, because they refuse to obey.

I roll and snatch the dagger Dad dropped in the adjoining passage. In the same move, I whip the blade through the fairy’s fluorescent lines, but it has no effect. She attacks again, along with the other graffiti now pulled away from the walls. They surround me: glowing, barbed wire artwork.

I toss away the dagger and hold my hands over my head like we did in school during tornado drills. The diary at my neck trembles and shakes. I brave a look at the sensation of warmth at my chest. Light radiates from under my tunic, as if the words on the pages are infrared.

The drawings shudder and back up, each of them whimpering, even the fairy sketch. They reattach to the walls and settle into place, leaving the adjoining tunnel unguarded.

I scoop up Dad’s dagger and plunge after him, using the red glow
from the diary to guide me. It’s the first time I’ve seen the tiny book react in such a way, as if the magic inside is burning to come out. I’m not sure what caused it, but I’m grateful. It saved my life.

Absorbing my wet, weighted wings into my skin, I maneuver down the narrow corridors. The sound of dripping water fades. My plastic boots splat on the stone floor. Every nerve in my body skitters at what the sketches planned to do to me and what might be happening to my dad.

You should be in pieces like the others . . . Shred her!

What did the fairy sketch mean,
the others
? I squirm in my damp clothes.

The ceiling drops gradually, as if I’m growing again. The sensation is dizzying, but also gives me a sense of security. The bigger I am, the stronger I feel.

Masculine voices echo through the corridor and lure me to a passageway on my right, where soft slivers of light filter from behind a heavy-looking door that’s ajar. I sneak toward it, in hopes one of the voices belongs to Dad.

“You’ve no inkling what you’ve done in your desperation to keep me under your thumb.”
It’s Morpheus.
“No idea what you caused me to leave behind.”

“It wasn’t desperation,” Jeb answers.

An all-encompassing relief swarms through me at the sound of his voice. I inch closer to the door’s opening.

“The sprites told me Manti was after you,” Jeb continues from the other side. “That he’d sent some goon birds your way. And this is the thanks I get. For saving your ass for the thousandth time since we’ve been here.”

“Bloody hell,
my
arse,” Morpheus speaks. “
Your
arse is on a
blasted power trip, as always. But you crossed a line. And once I tell you what you’ve done, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

Jeb huffs. “Uh-huh. Sit up here so I can fix your ear. I have a painting to finish.”

The domestic undertone of their interaction is so fascinating it makes me pause. I wonder how long they’ve been holed up here together. For the entire time they’ve been trapped in this realm? I peer inside.

My breath hitches as I see Jeb’s back. He’s shirtless, wearing faded, ripped jeans in a room lit with a pinkish-orange sunset. The light streams through a glass ceiling. It’s like a greenhouse—a carbon copy of the art studio in the human realm where he was trapped a month ago. There’s the pattern again: Everything here is born and built of Jeb’s memories.

Paint glistens in wet smudges on his toned arms. I hold my breath, wishing for a glimpse of his face, but he won’t turn. His hair is longer now, the dark, unkempt waves just shy of touching his shoulders.

Morpheus misled me. Jeb
hasn’t
changed. He even has the same passions.

There are easels everywhere. Some untouched, others filled with landscapes, a few of which match the changing terrains we experienced in the midst of the looking-glass world. My brow crinkles as I try to make sense of it all.

Morpheus sits on a table in front of Jeb, dark wings draped forward and dragging on the floor. His discarded gloves lie in his lap, and he picks at one of the holes in his pant leg.

His little sprite companion, Nikki, flutters around both guys as if unsure where to perch.

Jeb lifts a paintbrush to Morpheus’s ear, accidentally stepping on the tip of a wing.

Morpheus winces and slaps Jeb’s hand away. “Ouch! Your bedside manner is sorely lacking, pseudo elf.”

Nikki hovers at the tip of Jeb’s nose, shaking a finger. After gently shooing the sprite away, he leans over Morpheus and lifts his brush again. “If you’d keep those things up on the table, there wouldn’t be an issue. Now hold still and stop acting like a little girl.”

A pulse of violet light passes from the wet bristles to Morpheus’s ear. Like magic, the wound heals. I stifle a surprised moan.

Back still turned, Jeb straightens to appraise his handiwork.

Morpheus smirks—a practiced, acerbic twist of lips. “So, is there any particular
girl
I remind you of?”

Nikki flutters between them, her hands clasped and head tilted in a dramatic gesture. She bats her lashes.

“You’re right, Nikki.” Dragging a fingertip through the paint on Jeb’s chest, Morpheus rubs the smudge between his thumb and finger. “He must be thinking of his girlfriend. Though I daresay, if I were Alyssa, his bedside manner would improve tremendously.”

Jeb throws his brush down and grips Morpheus by his holey lapel, every muscle in his back taut. Nikki hovers, her tinkling voice scolding them both.

“She’s my
ex
-girlfriend,” Jeb says. “And I don’t want to hear her name. I don’t want her haunting my subconscious.” He shoves Morpheus away. “You remember what happened when her face turned up in my paintings. We have to forget her. Just like she’s forgotten us.”

Ex-girlfriend.
All warmth inside me snuffs out. He’s never
sounded this discouraged, not even after fights with his dad. And it’s because he thinks I’ve abandoned them.

Morpheus swipes the paint from his thumb and finger across one of the dust rags piled next to him on the table. The look he gives Jeb is devilish delight. “A shame you have so little faith in the one you once claimed to love.” He slips his fingers into his jacket pocket and coaxes out Chessie. The furry netherling flitters his wings, rising. He smiles at Jeb, sincerely happy to see him.

Jeb totters back two steps. “Where did . . . how did he get here?”

Morpheus shrugs. “You should be asking
who brought him
here. That answer is much more interesting.”

Jeb shakes his head as the sprite takes Chessie’s paws in her hands so they’re dancing in midair. “Al would never . . .”

“She would,” Morpheus taunts. “She did. And she’ll soon find a way into our refuge. Unless your untimely retrieval of me caused her to be captured. In which case, she’s in danger, and it’s on your head.”

“No,” Jeb insists. “She doesn’t care enough to come.”

I want to storm inside and prove him wrong. He’s lost all faith in me. And that fact is more excruciating and unbelievable than anything I’ve faced since the time I first fell into the rabbit hole.

My limbs go numb and Dad’s dagger almost slips from my sweaty hand.

Dad! How could I have forgotten him?

A shuffling sound echoes from the darkness further down the corridor. Holding my breath, I tiptoe along the winding hallway. I haven’t made it very far when something clenches my arm from behind. One hand slaps across my mouth and another shoves me against the wall, hard enough my spine grinds into the stone.

My captor’s build is masculine. He grips my wrists with his free hand and holds them at my abdomen. My fingers tighten around Dad’s dagger, the blade pointed toward the ground.

I try to yell, but my attacker’s free hand seals my lips tight. He’s taller than me, head tilted like a curious puppy, as if trying to figure me out. There’s something so familiar about his height and form. When my eyes adjust to the dimness, I almost collapse.

It’s Jeb, from his labret to that body I know so well . . . only now I can see his face.

On the right side, red jeweled dots sparkle in a curved line from his temple to his cheekbone, matching his red labret. A closer look at his ears reveals pointed tips. He resembles an elfin knight of Ivory’s court, if not for his unshaved jaw. Even his eyes, vacant and distant, lack emotion.

A scream struggles to break loose as more gruesome details come to light. The skin under his left eye gapes open. Where there should be tissue and bones showing through, there’s nothing but a void.

My tongue dries, smothered under his palm.

“
He’s not the same boy you once knew
,” Morpheus warned. This is what he meant. Jeb is mutated, because of me.

I strangle on a sob.

Movement catches my attention in the emptiness where his skin gapes. An eyeball bobs to the surface, veined and backward. I gag, trying to shove him off. He’s too strong and holds me pinned by my own hands.

He bends his face closer. A set of fingers curls from inside the gaping skin above his cheekbone—a hand trying to reach out and touch me. The fingers are shiny and deep red, the color of blood.
The detached eyeball rolls to look at the fingertips while Jeb’s other two eyes continue to study me.

I gasp for breath under the unrelenting palm over my mouth. Heat scalds my chest—as electric as a lightning flash—and the diary under my tunic glows once more. It shocks my sense of self-preservation to life. I bare my teeth and bite his fingers, hard enough to break the skin.

With a feral screech, Jeb releases me. I spit out his blood, faintly aware that it tastes like paint.

I fumble for the slippery dagger in my sweaty fingers and catch it at the last minute, accidentally slicing through his jeans and thigh. He howls—a harrowing, animalistic sound—as the skin on his leg peels back in a six-inch gash.

“I’m sorry!” I cry. “I’m sorry for everything!”

Detached eyes and red disembodied hands spill from the opening, riding on slithering crimson vines with mouths that snap like Venus flytraps.

I drop the dagger. Back pressed to the wall, I slide down to the floor. My screams join his agonized wails. The slimy vines trail around me and I kick at them. Bile gushes into my throat as several constrict my ankle.

The door down the hall flings open. Morpheus rushes out with Nikki and Chessie flying behind.

Salty tears stream down my face—coating my lips as I mutter senseless apologies for so many things. So many irreversible things.

Morpheus peels the vines off and lifts me, cradling me to his chest.

“Get that bloody beast out of here!” he shouts over his shoulder. I look across through blurred eyes to see who he’s talking to.

It’s Jeb.
My Jeb.
The one who was speaking with Morpheus minutes ago. And the only thing marring his perfect face are spatters of paint.

The other Jeb, the one that attacked me, is crumpled on the floor, wailing—a macabre doppelganger of the human boy I know and trust.

“Why is it wandering around unattended?” Morpheus continues to scold. “I told you . . . you should never have granted it such freedoms.”

Jeb’s gaze passes over me, his green eyes far from the emotionless stare of an elfin knight. They’re rife with shock, bitterness, and agony.

Shivers race from my head to my toes. I need to tell him that I’ve come to save him. That I still love him. That I’m sorry for everything. But my vocal cords stiffen, as if iced over.

My head feels like ice, too. Heavy and deadened. I’m not even sure I’m awake anymore. Maybe this has all been a nightmare. I hold on to the nape of Morpheus’s neck, burying my face in his jacket. Nikki and Chessie burrow into my hair. I inhale Morpheus’s scent. It’s the only thing I recognize, the only thing that’s safe.

He carries me back to the well-lit room and sets me gently on the table. I can’t stop trembling. My throat aches from holding back sobs.

“Calm down, Alyssa.” Morpheus wraps a heavy canvas drop cloth around my shoulders.

Chessie clambers from my shoulder into my lap, his wide emerald eyes asking if I’m okay. Nikki buzzes around my face, patting my temple with her ladybug-size palm—maternal and kind.

My blood flashes hot and cold.

“You look pallid,” Morpheus says, gathering the drop cloth tighter around me. “Are you going to need a bucket?”

I shake my head, fighting off the queasy roil in my gut. “W-w-where’s Jeb? What was that thing—” Shuddering coughs shake my body.

“Shh.” Morpheus places his hands at either side of my hips on the table. His wings enfold us. “Jebediah’s putting it away. He’ll be back shortly. Breathe deeply and concentrate on me. You are safe.”